Home

Previous Entry | Next Entry

Obama Plagiarism Scandal

  • Feb. 19th, 2008 at 11:28 AM

Barack Obama Plagiarism Scandal

When I first heard about this scandal, I dismissed it as minor.

Well, it might not be minor. In fact, I am starting to think we might have a real scandal on our hands here, and it's going to take a week or two to really blow up.

In case you missed it, here is the first issue:

1. The "Just Words" speech from Patrick.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=aBcYXfbGnhA

and

http://youtube.com/watch?v=By2WxgeaTw4

OK, so Obama admits he was borrowing words from Patrick, and that Patrick is a friend. He doesn't explain why he didn't attribute the claim at the time.

In itself, a minor scandal that will blow over. However, due to what happened with Biden in 1988, what it meant was the press started to pour over his explanation, and all of Obama's prior speeches, and see if there is a pattern and practice of him plagiarizing speeches.

And if there is, THEN it becomes a real scandal as opposed to the minor blip it is right now.

And so what I thought would end there, now isn't. The press is doing that, and here is what they found in just the last 12 hours:

2) The timeline on Obama's explanation does not track.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/02/deval-patricks.html

“In a telephone interview on Sunday, Mr. Patrick said that he and Mr. Obama first talked about the attacks from their respective rivals last summer, when Mrs. Clinton was raising questions about Mr. Obama’s experience, and that they discussed them again last week," the Times' Jeff Zeleny wrote. "Patrick said he told Mr. Obama that he should respond to the criticism, and he shared language from his campaign with Mr. Obama's speechwriters.”

But Obama was quoted using Patrick's language before the Summer of 2007.

"'We hold these truths to be self-evident, all men are created equal.’ Those are just words," Obama was quoted as saying in a March 19, 2007 New Republic story. " ‘I have a dream.’ Just words.”

So....the claim that Patrick an Obama "first" discussed this last Summer does not make sense.

3) Obama plagiarized Patrick another time, this time with the "chance on your own aspirations" line.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/02/deval-patricks.html

Patrick in June 2006, at the Massachusetts Democratic party convention: "I am not asking anybody to take a chance on me. I am asking you to take a chance on your own aspirations."

Obama one year later, as quoted in USA Today: "I am not asking anyone to take a chance on me. I am asking you to take a chance on your own aspirations."

4) Obama also may have plagiarized a line from Robin Williams in the movie "Man of the Year". The "We are not a nation of red states or of blue states; we are the United States of America." This one is a bit less of an issue for me, since it's kind of a generic line. However, when looking for a pattern and practice, it's an issue on some level.

See:

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/01/the_audacity_of_obamas_speech.html

And this is just the first 12 hours. If this thing starts rolling, and plagiarized line after plagiarized line starts coming out, Obama has a real serious scandal on his hands. And it's made all the worse by it starting with the "Just Words" speech, and Obama banking his campaign on his public speaking ability. It all has a certain irony to it that the media will love like sharks smelling blood in the water.

Tags:

Comments

( Leave a comment )
[info]prof_reed wrote:
Feb. 20th, 2008 03:20 pm (UTC)
This is nothing
First, Barack Obama has in past speeches acknowledged using Deval words in a speech in Portsmouth Dec 21, 2007. Second, speech giving is an oral culture as a result people borrow without attribution all the time. Ronald Reagan famous line "I paid for this mike" actually was a Spencer Tracy line and if every republican who cribbed from Reagan himself had to give credit or be ejected from the race the field would empty quickly. But the bottom line is that speech giving is different than writing an article or debate, JFK, King, Wilson, FDR, Reagan, Truman, they are used all the time and involked only when necessary to add to the authority of the words. But words like "Ask not" or "We have nothing to fear" have power with out attribution. Attribution is a rhetorical strategy for lending legitimation to a speech. You don't do it if its going to distract. On top of this, both Deval and Obama probably got these words from a common source, their respective campaign managers David Axelrod whom neither credited and no one ever does. David Frum claims he invented "Axis of Evil" but Bush didn't credit him. In fact no one ever credits their speech writers when the fact of the matter is that often politicians themselves write only a tiny portion of their speeches. In such an environment as this, the whole notion of source and attribution seems ridiculous. I will be surprised if this goes anywhere, and clearly it did not have the effect that the Clinton camp hoped for when exit polls showed that 53 percent felt Clinton has unfairly attacked Obama.
| Reply | Thread
[info]markcronan wrote:
Feb. 20th, 2008 05:51 pm (UTC)
Re: This is nothing
"First, Barack Obama has in past speeches acknowledged using Deval words in a speech in Portsmouth Dec 21, 2007. "

See point 2 above. Kinda sucks that you didn't have the courtesy to even read what you were replying to.

"Second, speech giving is an oral culture as a result people borrow without attribution all the time."

I disagree if it becomes a pattern and practice. Obama is banking his entire campaign on being a good speaker, someone who comes off as "real". If his "real" was actually someone else's "real", and I don't mean speech writers but other public figures, it may detract from his appeal. I certainly thought a lot less of that speech of his once I realized he was an actor reading lines rather than a truly spontaneous persuasive speaker.

"I will be surprised if this goes anywhere, and clearly it did not have the effect that the Clinton camp hoped for when exit polls showed that 53 percent felt Clinton has unfairly attacked Obama."

So when I said "it's going to take a week or two to really blow up" you took that to mean "Mark is saying this will have an impact tonight"?

It isn't something that happens right away. You need to show a pattern and practice, and this scandal is new and frankly only on the cable stations (briefly) at the moment, with Obama (as usual) being treated with kid gloves by the media (see for example http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brad-wilmouth/2008/02/13/matthews-obama-speech-caused-thrill-going-my-leg).

I didn't expect it to have any impact on Democratic voters in this primary. It's going to take a long time to go back through all his speeches and see if they have lines taken from others. But long term, this could turn into an important scandal.

When people build their base of support on a cult of personality (and I do think that is what is happening with Obama), they can fall very hard once that personality is shown to be fake. I am not saying that WILL happen with Obama, but I think it's unwise to assume it can't happen. It's likely his biggest weakness, and this issue goes to that weakness.
| Reply | Parent | Thread
[info]prof_reed wrote:
Feb. 22nd, 2008 05:20 pm (UTC)
Re: This is nothing
Ok, I did read the tapper hit piece, but before you linked to it. I see he has since been quick to try to defend himself and has replied that "that's not what I was talking about." But the accusation of plagiarism has problems if there are occasions when Obama actually has indicated his source. It means certainly that there was no intention of passing off someone elses words as his own. And I think Obama effectively put this thing to bed last night in the debate. I think you could tell from the audience boos that this is going nowhere. But ultimately the thing about Obama is people WANT to believe in hope. Hillary and McCain are both basically arguing that things are going to get worse not better. But Obama has taken a page from Reagan here, morning in America is a message people want to believe in. 8 years of living in terror has gotten tiring. I don't think, despite what david brooks says, that it is Obama qua Obama that is the issue, it is the message of Change and Hope and the fact that Obama speaks eloquently about it that inspires people. I also think this speaks to church people as well, in that environment language peppered by allusions to and quotes from biblical passages are common in sermons. In that sort of environment, accusations of plagiarism are going to fall flat.

And finally, lets just stipulate that Chris Matthews is a goof. But certainly I have read critical pieces about Obama in the LA Times, The Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune particularly related to the Revko issue. I think it is possible, however, that if the Clinton oppo research program couldn't come up with better stuff than it has, there may not be much to find there.
| Reply | Parent | Thread
( Leave a comment )